The state of the union is obstreperous. Dyspepsia is the new equilibrium . All the passion in Americanpolitics is oppositional. The American people know what they don’t like, which is: everything.

In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama imagined a new path forward, one in which partisans would overcome their differences, suppress their rancor and work together to achieve wonderful things:

“[I]t’s precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country.